NCAA wins battle against sex bias law

Published: Wednesday, February 24, 1999

WASHINGTON (AP) - The NCAA finally won one.

The organization scored a welcome legal victory Tuesday when the Supreme Court ruled the organization is not subject to a federal sex-bias law just because it collects dues from federally financed colleges and universities.

But the justices' unanimous decision left open the possibility the governing body for college sports may for other reasons be covered by the law known as Title IX of the Education Acts of 1972.

Renee Smith, an Ohio woman who says she was illegally declared ineligible to play college volleyball, had argued the NCAA could be sued under the law because the dues it receives from member schools make it an indirect recipient of federal funds.

NCAA president Cedric Dempsey was confident lower courts will reject Smith's other arguments for allowing her suit to go forward.

"We have consistently said that the NCAA should be in compliance with Title IX on a voluntary basis and have worked to achieve compliance," Dempsey said.

The ruling represented a new turn for the NCAA, which last year agreed to pay $2.5 million to settle a long-running suit brought by basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian. The NCAA had been reeling from a ruling last May that it acted unlawfully in capping the salaries of entry-level coaches.

Also, the NCAA reached an agreement with the Justice Department last year to allow students with learning disabilities to receive athletic scholarships.

On Tuesday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court, "At most, the association's receipt of dues demonstrates that it indirectly benefits from the federal assistance afforded its members."

"This showing, without more, is insufficient to trigger Title IX coverage," Ginsburg said.

The law bars sex discrimination in educational programs receiving federal financial aid. Ginsburg noted that similar wording is used in other laws banning discrimination in federally funded programs based on race, age or disability.

Most of the NCAA's 1,200 schools receive federal funds and therefore are covered by Title IX. The NCAA's lawyers said during arguments in January the association itself was not a federal aid recipient and that athletes should take up discrimination complaints with the individual schools.

Smith's lawyer, Carter Phillips, discounted the importance of this latest ruling, contending Smith has a good chance of convincing a lower court she should be allowed to sue the NCAA because schools have given it control of athletic programs.

"We clearly live to fight another day," Phillips said.

That view was echoed by Adele Kimmel of the Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, which is representing black athletes in a separate race-discrimination lawsuit against the NCAA. The Supreme Court "was in fact leaving the door open" to other arguments that the NCAA should be covered by the anti-bias laws, Kimmel said.

Smith, who lives in Wintersville, Ohio, played volleyball for St. Bonaventure in the 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons and graduated in less than three years.

She later pursued a graduate degree at Hofstra and a law degree at Pittsburgh. At each, her attempts to play two more seasons of volleyball were thwarted by an NCAA rule that barred graduate students from playing college sports at a school other than the one from which they earned their undergraduate degree.

Her lawsuit said the NCAA grants men a disproportionate number of waivers from its rules. The NCAA said more men seek waivers but that a higher percentage of women receive them. In 1996, the association began allowing graduate students to transfer their sports eligibility to another school.

A federal judge threw out Smith's lawsuit, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her Title IX claim last year. "The NCAA is not merely an incidental beneficiary of federal funds," the appeals court said.

The Supreme Court disagreed.

"Entities that receive federal assistance, whether directly or through an intermediary, are recipients within the meaning of Title IX; entities that only benefit economically from federal assistance are not," Ginsburg wrote.

However, the justices instructed lower courts to hear Smith's arguments that she should be allowed to sue the NCAA under Title IX on grounds it receives federal funds through the National Youth Sports Program and because schools have given the NCAA controlling authority over college athletics.